Two words, Death Valley. I wanted to share a story with you all about this weekend where our Jeep almost fell off the cliff. Let me paint a picture for you. It was about 3pm on our way to the race track where we encountered what I guesstimated to be far past a 15% grade. It reminded me of Zion’s switchbacks, but with ROCKS. Off roading by the way is very new to me, actually it was my first time. As we were climbing all of a sudden I felt our car go sideways. Our driver slipped off the right side of the road and the only thing that was keeping us balanced were two tires. It was like a seesaw. (Pause) imagine the scene in the Matrix. In my head I thought to myself “door knob — unlock — now” then we transitioned into this Mission Impossible like maneuver to get everyone out. In a split second everything that ever made sense in my life, didn’t. I couldn’t make out what was actually happening. Take a look at this picture. The rear left tire was completely lifted off of the floor, the back right and front left tire probably had the most weight but the back right tire was barely off the edge. The only thing that stabilized the front left tire was a couple of rocks. Did we get lucky? AGH.

After securing our safety we went back to the car to grab all of our gear. The @streetsofsf and @westcoast_exposures Jeeps helped us out by replenishing our food supply and leaving the scene to seek help. It was a dead zone with no cellular reception. Luckily the Jeep rental company @farabees_jeep had an emergency tracking kit for situations like this. From what we remembered it would take about 3-4 hours for help to come. After a hour it started raining which was BAD because our car was already hanging onto dear life with two tires. We found shelter in a nearby cave. While waiting we heard a car drive pass and immediately flagged for help. Tim who was a solo Jeep driver decided to help. Then out of nowhere @maxe30is shows up to the rescue. They both looked at our car evaluated it came up with a plan. All together we were able to wedge the car out using a couple big rocks for support and @maxe30is's car as a reinforcement.

As I sit here and reflect on the ride back home I can’t help but be reminded of that whole situation and the thought of death. I asked myself Is this the way I wanted to leave the world? Then I started thinking about outrageous things such as the thought of who would show up at my funeral. Even the thought of how life would be without @jlinhh. It was pretty surreal. It grounded me and made me think really really hard. I wanted to take this time to show my gratitude to the @streetsofsf and @westcoast_exposures team for transporting all of our gear and seeking out help. @2ndfloorguy for overlooking the situation, @maxe30is for holding it down, TIM for saving our Jeep with no damages to the car, and åeveryone who contributed to the rescue efforts, and the @feedbacknation team for working together to get through a tough situation like this.

Before I end this caption I wanted to share with you all that life is so precious. You just never know if or when its going to be your turn. So treat each day as if it was your last, don’t hold back, and enjoy every single SECOND that you’re alive. I hope you enjoyed this story, i’m going to be including this into blog 002.